Effort to resurrect higher cigarette tax short-lived

BATON ROUGE — An effort to resurrect a
higher state cigarette tax was short-lived Tuesday when the House Ways
and Means Committee
voted 11-7 to kill a 32-cent-per-pack increase.

Rep. Katrina Jackson, D-Monroe, wanted to raise the current 36-cent-per-pack tax by 32 cents. That would have created a 68-cent
tax, equal to the cigarette tax in Mississippi.

Members of the committee a day earlier never had a chance to vote on any of four proposed increases. Rep. Harold Ritchie,
D-Bogalusa, was first up, but voluntarily deferred his measure, which would have increased the tax from 36 cents a pack to
$1.41. He said the votes weren’t there. Texas has a $1.41 cigarette tax.

The Tuesday vote on Jackson’s bill definitely put the cigarette tax issue to rest for this legislative session.

Rep. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge, had proposed a 60-cent-per-pack tax but pulled it back when he learned the $57 million in
annual revenues wouldn’t be sufficient to replace the state’s corporate franchise tax.

Jackson deferred two of her bills Monday, but brought one back for consideration Tuesday. It was a constitutional amendment
that would have been submitted to the state’s voters for final approval.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has said he would
veto any tax increases that aren’t revenue neutral, but he has no veto
power over constitutional
amendments. They require two-thirds votes for passage in both
houses and go directly to the voters.

“Our choice today is to let the people decide,” Jackson said. “Give the people of Louisiana a true choice.”

Andrew Muhl, government relations director for the American Cancer Society of Louisiana, spoke for Ritchie’s bill Monday,
but was against Jackson’s proposal. He said the 32-cent increase wasn’t high enough to deter young people from smoking or
to encourage smokers to quit.

Spokesmen for convenience stores and
tobacco interests also spoke briefly against the proposed increase. One
said he was testifying
on behalf of his customers.

Jackson’s tax would have raised $129 million annually. She amended the legislation to create the Higher Education Revitalization
Fund in the state treasury to distribute the revenues.

The bill called for 40 percent of the revenues to be deposited in the Louisiana Medical Assistance Trust Fund to be used solely
for the state’s Medicaid health care program for the poor.

Ten percent would have gone to retire unfunded debt owed by the Louisiana State Employees Retirement System and the Teachers
Retirement System of Louisiana.

Twenty percent would have been used by the LSU Board of Supervisors to fund its health science centers. An additional 4.5
percent would have been used by LSU for health care research. Southern University would have received 4.5 percent for its
research.

The University of Louisiana Board of Supervisors would have received 4.5 percent for the school of pharmacy at the University
of Louisiana at Monroe.

Nursing programs would have benefited,
and each would have received 1.5 percent of the revenues. They included
programs at
Grambling, LSU-Alexandria, LSU-New Orleans, McNeese State
University, Nicholls State University, Northwestern State University,
Southeastern State University, University of Louisiana at
Lafayette, ULM, Southern University, New Orleans School of Dentistry
and Southern-Shreveport for its dental hygiene program.